(Picture:Gov Babangida of Niger State who doubles as chairman Northern Governors’ Forum)
By Abdallah el-Kurebe
The 2014 Report of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) has revealed that 10 states in the north of Nigeria are the country’s poorest.
The report further states that 43.3 percent of Nigerians were living in poverty with Bauchi State having the highest percentage of people living in extreme poverty, followed by Kebbi State.
Others in that poverty bracket include Zamfara, Sokoto, Yobe, Jigawa, Katsina, Gombe, Borno and Niger, respectively.
The 2014 OPHD “Nigeria Country Briefing”, which measured multidimensional poverty index (MPI) for Nigeria noted that “19.3 percent of the population remained vulnerable to poverty while 25.3 percent of Nigerians live in severe poverty.
“26.6 percent of Nigeria’s over 170 million people are destitute, while 68.0 percent and 84.5 percent of the Nigerian population lived below $1.25 per day and $2 per day, respectively in 2010,” the report said.
According to the report, a person is identified as multidimensionally poor or ‘MPI poor’ if they are deprived in at least one third of the weighted indicators, including years of schooling; school attendance; child mortality; nutrition, electricity, sanitation, water, floor, cooking fuel and assets. “These 10 indicators are grouped under three dimensions; education, health and standard of living,” it added.
OPHI is an economic research centre within the Oxford Department of International Development at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
